Change of plans here due to weather forecast. I went out and did 8.6 miles before we went to Ben's race and we'll take Rascal to the forest tomorrow instead. Minus temperatures seem a bit cruel for her little paws so we'll restrict the time she's touching the floor!

Gorgeous crispy morning here and managed to keep pulse down below 141 without much walking at all - surprising and very pleasing progress!

I have not even looked at RW.co.uk since Christmas Day, I think my year of running and fundraising has been a bit of a drain on me. Being injured for 6 weeks has given me time to focus on other parts of my life and ignore all things running related.

At the end of November I did my final race (26th) a half in the New Forrest and I have been back running since the first week of January. I now do equipment based Pilates once a week which is really helping, which I had started sooner!

Just after I had to stop running I was the very happy winner of the Sport Personality of the Year 2012 in the Committment to Sport category. This was a real shock, but a fitting end to the year.

So 2013....... Well , a few things going on.......

Training my sister for her 1st Half Mara(Reading).

Project Managing a single story extension to our home. Will start beginning of May.

Go on holiday for 2 weeks in the sun!

Really busy at work but will try and make time to log on once every couple of days and catch with you all.

And Oscarr, coffee soon please ??

One last thing.....

Thanks to everyone who helped me, supported me, sponsored me or just showed an interest in "OlympicNick", for me it really was one amazing year and you guys were part of that, so thank you.

Reporting back on my running fitness assessment which was well worth the trip.

In short: treadmill assessment at 1% gradient and increasing pace from 9kph (10:44m/miling) to 16kph (6:02 m/miling) with 3 mins at each pace. Bloods taken at 3 min intervals and instantly analysed for lactic acid production.

My HR was monitored and went from 115 bpm at the 1st level up to 158 after 24 mins, 3 of which had been at 6:02m/mile pace.

From this, I have been given 6 training zones which you will all be familiar with - Recovery, base endurance, tempo, lactate threshold, race tempo and maximum effort.

The surprise for me was to see how low the first 3 zones are compared to where I have been running. It seems that my (pre-test) easy is the new tempo which possibly explains why I have been quite tired of late!

Today's base endurance (LSR) will therfore be at my new max HR for the zone of 119bpm and speed of 9:39m/mile - if I don't die of boredom, I'll report back later.

All is not lost as I have rationalised the findings overnight - I have in effect done my speed work early in the marathon training cycle and if I can build the endurance now I'll be in good shape.

As part of the session, I also had a body composition analysis so I know that for example I have 13.2% fat content and a stronger right leg!

Mike - I'd love to know how the pace calculations stack up against Jack Daniels VDOT tables. Have you tried a comparison? If you don't have the book, then plug in a recent race time into the following calculator

Hi Ten, its good to be back! I think I needed some time off from running and running related stuff. How are you doing Ten ?

As I said earlier I am training my sister and today was our 4th run together a nice and slow 8 miles @10 min pace. She has been following a training plan I knocked up since mid November and is doing really well. Will keep you updated on her progress.

Yo Mike - + 1 for the details of your test - as per FH - Ben would be intrigued and ya know how I lurve science too, please thank you! Best you start running round the hill in the opposite direction then to strengthen the other leg

The slowing down bit has been revolutionary for me too - you'll get your chance to be Mr Speedy in the relevant sessions though. Remember that your body can only produce fat burning enzymes and mitochondria in response to fat burning intensity! It may be slow but it's slow for a good reason

Well, that's the xc season over for me and the shoes have been hose cleaned for storage. Today was Tadley xc in the TVXC league (Sleepy - this is the one with the 3 ditches and the hill near the end and a good spread in the school hall - you would not have been pleased cos there were loads of sarnies but only a few cakes !!).

Sleepy is now doing Duathlons i understand - Marlow Striders put a flyer on my car today advertising their Marlow Duathlon on 17th March (same day as Reading Half and a week before Coniston 14) - details on their club web site if interested.

I'm now in a holding stage in my training between the xc and the start of The Wall training on 4th March. Will be building the mileage up over next 6 weeks including Bramley 20miler the day after my holiday!!!

Mike - the fitness assessment sounds great - more details of where, how much and pacing comparisons please.

Too right Mike, I'm there with anything that involves testing and analysis, so long as I don't have to run at 6 min pace at any stage.

FH life is good, a bit mad, could do with more time to recover and relax, i.e. work could go! I'm starting a teacher training course tomorrow for which the final assessment for the first part is on 23 March.

So I told them I can't make that date due to Coniston, and will now have to go a few weeks sooner so as to serve as a learning example for the rest of the class!

Today's run was a 14 miler in which I managed to return 2 mins faster than I went out [av pace 10:10, so not fast, and by the way that link of yours Ten suggested 10:20 so that's pretty close], a short cool down followed.

You may be wondering about the foot. Well the lump is more pronounced now to the touch, but it didn't protest at all until 8.5, and even then only a little.

It wouldn't take a PhD to work out that this was due to the 3 x 2 ibuprofen I had yesterday ho hum, I never even thought of it before, must not become an abuser of same.

I'm fairly hopeful that I will get sorted though.

Legs felt brilliant throughout, so something is working. I was always better at long slow admittedly, tired now, but had to cook up a storm and do washing and all that upon my return so was on the go an additional 3 hours in a whirlwind of efficiency and enterprise.

Yo oscarr - oooh thanks I'd forgotten that one - the bike section is pretty round my old training loop - will bookmark it right now! I marshalled the run route when we down there - it's good fun and not too serious if anyone fancies a go! I think there's a time limit if I remember rightly but you'd have to be really taking it easy not to finish within it! (it's 7k/25k/7k I believe - the run is pretty pancake - along the Thames though the bike is undulating)

Tsk tsk to the cake shortage - what's that all about!

Good news reiki - nothing wrong with knowing your strengths - I'm right there with you on the distance at a civilised pace! Loving your Coniston commitment - you should get a medal just for that!

If you graph the HR and lactate values you see a steady climb in the former while the LT is fairly flat through to Stage 4, but it then climbs sharply to cross the HR axis at 158bpm. This is where I am starting to feel fatigued and build lactate that I can't clear easily (except by slowing down). At this point I stopped as there was little point in carrying on.

From the above data the physiologist then constructed a table with 6 training zones

Recovery HR bpm 110 pace km/h 8.5 min/mile

Base Endurance 119 10.0 9:39

Tempo 133 11.5 8:24

Lactate Threshold 144 14.0 6:54

Race Tempo 158 16.0 6:02

Max effort 159 16.0 6:02

NB Max bpm and pace per zone above

This all hangs together as my VDOT data for a December 2012 10km race (42:30) gives me a mile pace of 7:02 and a mara pace of 7:32m/mile not a million miles away from where I was at Abingdon.

My Lactate Threshold is given as 138 bpm 12.6 k/ph which is 7:40m/mile = Abingdon pace again and a September HM at 7:35m/mile.

I guess the real value is having specific training Zones for me and a re-test would confirm my training progress.

Hello all,Just managed to catch up with the reading. I've just finished my first full week of running since November. I'm still getting fully over my cold but am good enough to run - thankfully!I was wondering if anyone could give me a refresher as to how to record miles for the forum competition?

Re HR - my max appears to be about 175. My resting is around 40 - which has promted a couple of visits to my GP because its abnormally low. He just says its because I'm fit I'm trying to figure out how much fitness I've lost from over a month of illness & not much running - seems to be about a minute over 5k. I'm hoping that a few weeks of training will put me back to where I was,and will allow me to get a new HM PB in March....

Mike - thanks for posting that. Some interesting stats there and something else you can measure over time (though a bit expensive to do too often ).

Threshold pace 7:02 (VDOT) vs 6:54 is close enough, but I'm confused by the recovery pace. Are you saying it's 8.5km/h - so roughly 5.5mph = 12:00 pace? That seems inordinately slow for someone of your ability I struggle to slow down to 11:00 pace, and I'm nowhere near as fast as you. VDOT has you at 8:49 easy pace. I guess I'm mis-reading what you have written?

Yip thanks Mike - I can totally see the value of getting someone experienced to interpret the data! You must be excited about putting it all into practice... I foresee Ben's next birthday present being easily sorted so thanks for sharing!

Ten - some of the world's best ultra runner's (apparently - ref Slow Burn) train at that pace in between speed sessions. I guess there is no such thing as too slow. The key is to get as much blood pumping round your body as possible at a rate where your muscles can spew out their waste products and get flooded with nutrients for maximum recovery. It's about my MAP jog pace too! (11.30 - 12.30 min/mi)

Snowy snowy here - my day has just gotten much quieter as my massage guinea pigs are cancelling due to the weather! Not surprised - the roads are really slidey here just now - nearly fell over walking the dog earlier - oops!

Well, I'm only on one painkiller every four hours now. Pain seems to have beaten!!! Still have major numb and weak leg though. Only doing half days at work this week to see how quick I can recover. If I'm better in 2 weeks, still gonna try Brighton, but will reject a target and just aim to finish. Lets see how it goes.

Previously bookmarked threads are now visible in "Followed Threads". You can also manage notifications on these threads from the "Forum Settings" section of your profile settings page to prevent being sent an email when a reply is made.

Runner's World is a publication of Hearst Magazines UK which is the trading name of The National Magazine Company Ltd, 72 Broadwick Street, London, W1F 9EP. Registered in England 112955. All rights reserved. Runner's World, Part of the Hearst UK wellbeing network